Appeal No. 2001-2030
Application No. 08/874,046
group being configured to compose and send messages according to
a protocol that differs from a protocol employed by another group
of components...” [emphasis added], and this is not taught by
either Bertsch (upon which the examiner relies for such a
teaching) or Guidette (upon which the examiner relies for the
teaching of a group identifier code), or by Dykema (upon which
the examiner relies for changing key values in claims 4, 5, 10-
20, 26 and 35-51), we will not sustain the rejections of claims
1, 2, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13-16, 20-22 and 24 under 35 U.S.C. 103.
With regard to claim 35, while this claim does not contain
the exact same language as claim 1, it is clear that claim
35 requires components to belong to particular groups and that
messages are sent between components within that group according
to a protocol common to that group of components. The claim also
requires first and second message authentication codes which are
calculated, in part, from a key value shared between sending and
receiving components. Since the examiner is basing the rejection
of this claim on the reasoning applied to claim 1, it is not
clear how the examiner is treating these additional requirements
of claim 35 and, accordingly, no prima facie case of obviousness
has been established by the examiner. We note that the examiner
makes no argument regarding the use of multiple protocols
-9–
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